Salome really is a beautiful, beautiful play. It should be better known. A Spanish book that I cannot read because I don't know Spanish calls it "la obra más representativa de Wilde," and it is: not representative of his plays, but of his writings as a whole, and perhaps more to the point, that which I love most about his writing. (In truth, I ( Read more... )

James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Marc Bolan.

I had read James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain back in highschool, and had not been particularly impressed with it, but now I am kicking myself for letting it keep me from reading Giovanni's Room sooner. Because Giovanni's Room might be the most beautiful book I have read in the last several ( Read more... )

Tis the season to be jolly, and also the season of holiday movies. I know some of you may not watch tv enough to see all the trailers, so I just wanted to share this holiday bounty with you:

The Nativity Story


( Read more... )

When the night-road is the same color as the sky, and the Newark airport brings forth its crop of a field ripe with lights, heavy golden bulbs spreading their pollen in the ionic breeze ( Read more... )

You all know of my passion for Oscar Wilde and his writing, but Peter Pan was one of my first loves. Not the first, no--that honor belonged to a fictional onion, and the next after him was Tom Sawyer. (And I know I'm mixing literary love with childhood crushes here, but shush ( Read more... )

Driving long distances on the interstate is always worth it: unfailingly, you'll see something beautiful. Maybe it's a bridge, rising up to meet you over far-off tress and mountains, like a great dragon jaw; maybe it's a twisted, delicate-ugly factory, blowing bright purple smoke into a sunset sky, twinkling with gnome lights; maybe it's the night ( Read more... )

...adultery was harshly suppressed by citizens' tribunals of honor, nightingales sang, and the body of Clementis swung like a bell ringing in the new dawn of humanity.

--Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and ForgettingFrom now on, I think I'll pepper my entries with little excerpts of writing from my assignments that I find beautiful ( Read more... )

Or at least his writing is. I'm continuously amazed at his ability to write so beautifully about the most uncouth subjects.

( For instance, comparing male genitalia to lily flowers. )

It’s funny, I went to London for so many things, and yet it’s this that has made the biggest impression on me. I guess this proves that I am obsessed beyond reason, as Lottie kept telling me… but then this is why I intend to join Sugar aka anglepoiselamp and the fight for the rights of obsessees everywhere. Sugar understands! It may not be healthy, dammit, ( Read more... )

This is an entry written on the plane, flying from Heathrow in London to Lyon. It is 4:42 p.m. in French time, 3:42 p.m. in British, and 10:42 a.m. in American. I boarded my first flight yesterday at 10:35 p.m., and have since slept 4 hours at most. I should really probably be getting some sleep (if not doing my reading), but I can’t concentrate ( Read more... )